Workers

10/15/2013

When I have described the well-considered, coherent political and economic strategies of the conservative white South, as I have done here, here and here, I am sometimes been accused of being a “conspiracy theorist.” But one need not believe that white-hooded Dragons and Wizards are secretly coordinating the actions of Southern conservative politicians from a bunker underneath Stone Mountain in Georgia to believe that a number of contemporary policies — from race-to-the-bottom economic policies to voter disfranchisement and attempts to decentralize or privatize federal social insurance entitlements — serve the interests of those who promote them, who tend to be white Southern conservatives.

Just as a strategy is not a conspiracy, so it is not insanity. Ironically, American progressives, centrists and some Northern conservatives are only deluding themselves, when they insist that the kind of right-wing Southerners behind the government shutdown are “crazy.” Crazy, yes — crazy like a fox.

Another mistake is the failure to recognize that the Southern elite strategy, though bound up with white supremacy throughout history, is primarily about cheap and powerless labor, not about race. If the South and the U.S. as a whole through some magical transformation became racially homogeneous tomorrow, there is no reason to believe that the Southern business and political class would suddenly embrace a new model of political economy based on high wages, high taxes and centralized government, rather than pursue its historical model of a low-wage, low-tax, decentralized system, even though all workers, employers and investors now shared a common skin color.

So the struggle is not one to convert Southern Baptists to Darwinism or to get racists to celebrate diversity. The on-going power struggle between the local elites of the former Confederacy and their allies in other regions and the rest of the United States is not primarily about personal attitudes. It is about power and wealth.

For some time, the initiative has rested with the Southern power elite, which knows what it wants and has a plan to get it. The strategy of the conservative South, as a nation-within-a nation and in the global economy, combines an economic strategy and a political strategy.

The economic strategy is to maximize the attractiveness of the former Confederacy to external investors, by allowing Southern states to out-compete other states in the U.S., as well as other countries if possible, in a race to the bottom by means of low wages, stingy government welfare (which if generous increases the bargaining power of poor workers by decreasing their desperation) and low levels of environmental regulation.

The political strategy of the Southern elite is to prevent the Southern victims of these local economic policies from teaming up with allies in other parts of the U.S. to impose federal-level reforms on the Southern states. Voter suppression seeks to prevent voting by lower-income Southerners of all races who are hostile to the Southern power elite. Partisan gerrymandering of the U.S. House of Representatives by conservatives in Southern state legislatures weakens the votes of anti-conservative Southerners, if they are allowed to vote.

If voter suppression and vote dilution strategies fail, the Southern conservatives can still try to ward off unwelcome federally-imposed reforms that might weaken control of the Southern workforce by Southern employers and their political agents, by policies of devolving federal programs to the states, privatizing federal programs like Social Security and Medicare, blocking the implementation of new federal entitlements like Obamacare or a combination of these strategies.

To date the response of progressives and centrists, as well as moderate conservatives in the North (who have a quite different tradition) to what might be called the Southern Autonomy Project has been feeble and reactive. The South acts, the rest of the country reacts.

Here Midwestern Republican legislatures or governors try to copy the South’s anti-labor “right-to-work” legislation, and labor activists and liberals react. The legislatures in the South and their allies elsewhere pass voter suppression laws, and civil rights groups scramble to counteract them. Now the Southern-dominated Tea Party in the House shuts down the government and threatens to force the federal government into default. In this game of “Whack-a-mole,” the Southern right and its neo-Jacksonian allies in other parts of the country always has the initiative.

Instead of waiting for the next Southern conservative outrage, and treating it as a single, isolated example of inexplicable craziness, the rest of America from center-left to center-right should recognize that it is dealing with different aspects of a single strategy by a regional elite — the Southern Autonomy Project. It is time for the non-Southern American majority, in alliance with many non-elite Southerners of all races, to target and attack every element of the Southern Autonomy Project simultaneously. If the neo-Confederates want to wage political and economic war, their fellow Americans should choose to respond with political and economic war on all fronts, not on the terms and in the places the Southern conservatives choose.

Setting political difficulty aside, it is intellectually easy to set forth a grand national strategy that consists of coordinated federal policies to defeat the Southern Autonomy Project.

A federal living wage. At one blow, a much higher federal minimum wage would cripple the ability of Southern states to lure companies from more generous states which supplement the too-low present federal minimum wage with higher local state or urban minimum wages. (Strong national unions could do the same, but that is not a realistic option at present.)

Nationalization of social insurance. Social insurance programs with both federal and state components, like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), allow Southern states to be stingier than many other states, creating more desperate workers who are more dependent on the mercy of employers and elite-dominated charities. Completely federalizing Medicaid (as President Ronald Reagan suggested!) and other hybrid federal-state social insurance programs would cripple the Southern Autonomy Project further.

Real voting rights. Using the authority of the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Congress should completely federalize voting requirements for all federal, state and local elections, making it as easy as possible for U.S. citizens to vote — over the objections of kicking and screaming neo-Confederates.

Nonpartisan redistricting. Partisan redistricting by majorities in state legislatures should be replaced by nonpartisan redistricting commissions, as in California, New Jersey and other states. The redistricting commissions should be truly nonpartisan, not “bipartisan” arrangements in which incumbent Republicans and incumbent Democrats cut deals to protect their safe seats from competition. (Electoral reforms like instant run-off voting and proportional representation are struggles for a more distant future).

Abolish the Senate filibuster. The filibuster is not part of the U.S. constitution. It has been used by Southern white conservatives from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first to preserve Southern white power and economic privilege. This relic of premodern British parliamentary politics should be abolished. Democracy means majority rule. If the Southern Right loses a battle in Congress, it can try to round up allies and win next time. It should no longer be able to paralyze the Senate, the Congress or the federal government as a whole.

Abolish the federal debt ceiling completely. The federal debt ceiling is another institution like the filibuster which has now been ruined by being abused by Southern conservatives. Now that the Southern right is trying to turn it into a recurrent tool of hostage-taking when it loses votes in Congress, the federal debt ceiling should be abolished. The federal government should be authorized to borrow any amount necessary to fund spending appropriated or authorized by Congress, if there is any shortfall in tax revenues.

Put all these policies and perhaps others together, and you have a National Majority Rule Project capable of thwarting the Southern Autonomy Project. The best defense is a good offense.

Does saying this make me, a white Southerner, a traitor to the South? Among the beneficiaries of a National Majority Rule Project, if it succeeded, would be middle- and low-income white Southerners, whose interests have never been identical with those of the local oligarchs. Particularly among the Scots-Irish of Appalachia and the Ozarks, there have always been many Southern white populists and radicals — from the West Virginian and Kentucky Unionists of the Civil War to New Deal liberals in Texas — who have understood the need to ally ourselves with non-Southerners in national politics to defeat the local Nabobs, Bourbons and Big Mules. The true Southern patriots are those of us who want to liberate the diverse population of the South from being exploited as wage earners and from being disfranchised or manipulated as voters. Another term for the National Majority Rule Project might be the Southern Liberation Movement.

Will the initiative remain with aggressive Southern reactionaries, as their fellow Americans try to appease them or react on a case-by-case basis against a feint here or a diversion there? Or will an aroused national majority, tired of being pushed around by a selfish Southern minority of the shrinking American white majority, finally fight back?

01/04/2013

Police in northeast India say they believe workers on a tea plantation who bludgeoned their boss and his wife to death last month also ate parts of their bodies.

A crowd of 1000 workers at the privately-owned M.K.B. Tea Estate in the state of Assam surrounded the plantation owner’s bungalow last week. A mob then set it on fire in violence blamed on festering labour unrest in the region.

“Our investigations say that at least five plantation workers ate the flesh of the tea planter and his wife after they were brutally killed,” Numol Mahatao, deputy police chief of Tinsukia district, told journalists.

“We suspect that about 15 people were actually involved in the crime although there were some 1000 present there at the spot,” the police official said. “We have identified all the masterminds and nine are in our custody so far.”

Mr Mahatao said the reports of cannibalism were based on a confession from one of the workers present during the attack.

Tea workers are notoriously badly paid and often housed in poor accommodation in remote areas. They have few protections from police and cannot take advantage of laws designed to guarantee them health care and fair working conditions, rights groups say.

The Indian Express newspaper said the violence was sparked by orders from the boss for 10 estate workers to vacate their quarters and by the detention of three employees by police over unspecified disputes.

“We are investigating the reasons that led to the attack. But whatever may be the reason, such acts of barbarism are unacceptable in this modern world,” Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.

Assam produces around 55 per cent of India’s annual tea production, which stood at 988.32 million kilograms last year, and the state is home to more than 800 tea estates.

11/24/2012

Here is a very fascinating look at the inside about what happened to Hostess. Read and see if you still want to blame the workers there.

Most people seem to assume that Hostess was operating under a traditional business model that was outdated and cumbersome. That in the end the company failed because they couldn't sell enough product in a changing consumer base to cover their expenses.

Whether people blame the Union or the company, this theme seems mostly universal.

It just simply isn't the reason for the closure of Hostess plants.

This common sense assumption about how business works can be broken down to one simple statement that most people go along with.

"It is the goal of the company to make as much money as possible for the owners."

Can I assume that we all agree with that? If you don't then I got nothing for you, go back to cable.

Most people think that means the Hostess business model includes efficiently producing a high quality bread product and selling enough of it to surpass their expenses. I spent many years there assuming the same thing. That is the traditional business model of a large scale bakery. But you have to ask yourself 'who is Hostess?' and 'how do they define profits?'

Hostess in a legal sense is a piece of paper. A privately held piece of paper. Passed from owner to owner for the purpose of profit. The current owners are hedge funds Monarch and Silverpoint, with the later addition of Ripplewood. They are the board of directors. You may have heard that there have been 6 CEOs since 2002. There has only been one ownership group that whole time, the hedge funds. It is their business plan that those CEOs executed. Well.

The goal always was to maximize profits. Baking just wasn't a part of that picture. Monarch and Silverpoint funded the bringing together of Hostess/Wonder and Butternut/Dolly Madison in 1999. Both baking companies were profitable and had great infrastructures. Neither company was failing.

When these hedge funds figured out that they had to actually reinvest in their facilities and delivery equipment over the years, they simply didn't. Instead they turned their profit focus to brand valuation and pension theft. The goal was to lower Union costs then sell the brands and bakeries. They were able to strip 1/3 of our yearly income in the first bankruptcy and the management was paid millions while the company lost 100's of millions. They failed to break the Union so they held onto their investment while forcing the company to suffer for a few more years.

The company intentionally loaded itself with debt it knew it would never have to repay, $341 million in the year leading to the second bankruptcy, up from $136million the year before. That overbloated, intentional debt is now used by the company to blame the Unions for costing too much. The pension total that they stole from the bakers was only $50million of the $341million loss. Again, most of those debts are gone, like the $4.25 an hour they stole from our checks for over a year.

This company sold $2.5Billion last year. They have sold $68million worth of Twinkies this year so far. If these hedge funds and their toy CEO create brand and bakery packages and sell them off, they will be profitable. Even after years of losses. Profitable enough to even pay their pension debts. But they won't, because the judge has already waived those debts. And they will do it at the loss of thousands of jobs and pensions.

What does it cost to buy a couple of bakeries and a brand line like Drake Cakes? With no Union? How about 10 bakeries and the brand lines of Wonder/Hostess, including Twinkies, Cupcakes, Suzy Q...? How about 5 bakeries and the brand lines Home Pride and Nature's Pride? Is the combined total $1Billion? $1.5Billion? More?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does that mean they owe $1.05Billion (which does not include my pension) and may sell for $2.4 Billion. That would be a profit of $1.35Billion.

These hedge funds were not bakers, they were bankers. They will make money on their 14 year endeavor. 100's of millions no doubt, over a billion dollars possible. Their goal was to break the Unions and sell off the brands from the beginning. By that measure, this CEO deserves a raise. His only problem was that the Bakers Union knew what was up and threw a wrench in the plan. Now the CEO wishes he would have taken any number of previously ignored (and denied) offers.

They may have had 6 CEOs since 2002, but I bet the hedge funds view most or all as successes. They bought stuff with money they didn't have to repay. They reduced labor costs all along the way. Now they have made their final push to break the Union so they can sell off the bakeries and brands at higher rates. And they have used their media savvy to create a misleading storyline about Union greed. Lost in the Hostess discussion is that after Hostess sells off the brands in liquidation, Monarch and Silverpoint will likely profit 100's of millions of dollars. And give another bonus to the CEO who has executed the business plan pretty well, up until the Bakers decided to take our ball and go home. It's sitting on the couch next to me as I type.

They will prove to be profitable in the end. But none of that money will end up in the hands of the people they owe money too. Not just their workers but also suppliers and transport companies who went unpaid in either one, or both, of the bankruptcies. The Monarch Silverpoint business plan has been pretty successful. It's just that baking bread efficiently and at a high quality was never really part of that business plan.

UPDATE- In my first diary I point out '$3+' stolen from our pension per hour. The exact number is $4.25. It breaks down to $3.26 per hour for my pension, $.75 per hour for retiree insurance, and $.24 for retiree death benefits. Who steals that?

Update #2 This is essentially my opinion about what the goals of this company were and my predictions of what will happen to the owners. It's only source is the 14 years I have spent here at the bakery. It is the collection of memories and the thoughts of me and many of my co-workers. I am not a financial genius and I have no training related to this stuff. If I have something in the details wrong, it does not change what I think about the end result of the Hostess bankruptcy. I also know that the owners were previously creditors and they have been playing musical chairs for years with the 'public face' and the names of entities. Yet the board has been very consistent in it's behavior.

Update #3 I do not know if I can get in trouble for posting the LOU (Letter of Understanding). If I understand correctly, this is the actual document that is 'signed' as the contract. I will not post it till I know that I won't get in legal trouble. However I will show you the paragraph that is about wages. I have a hard copy so this is typed, not cut and pasted. I can put it up as a pdf if I should choose to post.

"wages: Effective the first Sunday following the ratification of this LOU,total wage compensation(wages and commision) will be reduced from the current wage and commision rates ("baseline") by 8% in the first year of this LOU, by 5% from the baseline in the second, third and 4th years of this LOU, and by 4% from the baseline in the 5th year of this LOU."

My personal baseline is $16.12 an hour. Our Union believes this is an accumulated total of 27% over 5 years. The company says this means 4% over 5 years. We believe it is loaded language meant to get us to vote for it, under the guise of an 8% cut followed by a 4% raise, then sell us to another company and let their lawyers argue that we agreed to a 27 % cut. The company has known our feelings on this from day 1 and have refused to change the language. We can only assume the reason is that we are right.

No doubt many will debate whether or not we are correct. It means nothing. They have been given a chance to make the language more precise and have refused. We must and will proceed as we see it.